


Papa Didn't Raise No Fool

by kettish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A/B/O, Alpha!Shiro, M/M, Omega!Keith, Omegaverse, Shiro is a people pleaser at heart, rated t for slight language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 11:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17786423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kettish/pseuds/kettish
Summary: Shiro desperately wants Keith's dad's approval. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so he takes Lance and Matt up on their offers to help.Keith continues to insist that it's not necessary.





	Papa Didn't Raise No Fool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lisacreature](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisacreature/gifts).



> For @FanficSheith on twitter, for Sheithlentines 2019! Hope you like it--sorry I couldn't do NSFW this time, but I couldn't get my head wrapped around it enough to provide. :(

Shiro was at his wit’s end, and in desperation, turned to his fellow Paladins for help.

“It doesn’t matter what I do or say, he just frowns at me or ignores my existence,” Shiro complained after work. He was in the Atlas’ Paladins’ lounge with Hunk, Lance, Pidge, and Matt. Hunk was fiddling with something with Pidge and Matt, who were arguing over coding while Hunk hummed cheerfully and adjusted something with a screwdriver that looked too tiny for his fingers. Lance was playing Phantasm Killbot 3000 and losing. “I’ve tried being respectful, I’ve tried being nice. I’ve tried giving a small, thoughtful gift. I’ve tried ignoring him in return. He’s never going to like me.”

“Have you tried alcohol?” Pidge asked absently, tapping at the computer she and Matt were working on. 

“That’s not going to work, Pidge, it’ll just look like he’s trying to get him drunk,” Lance argued. Pidge shrugged, input offered. “He needs to try the old-fashioned route, and ask for Keith’s hand!”

“Oh hell no he does not,” Matt replied, pointing a finger at Lance. “He needs to just go ahead and bond with Keith and be done! A man like Keith’s dad will appreciate an independent spirit.”

“Have you seen him? Have you smelled him? He reeks of traditional alpha!” Lance cried, “I bet if he’d been around when Keith was younger, Keith would’ve been locked in his house, only let out on chaperoned dates, and wouldn’t even know what a knot looks like!” Shiro choked.

“Alright, let’s settle this then. Whichever of us gets Papa Kogane to accept Shiro gets fifty GAC,” Matt declared, and he and Lance shook on it. Firmly. Very firmly. Too firmly, Shiro could just make out the sounds of bones grinding together. He batted their joined hands down to break it up and slumped back against the couch once more, wishing he’d never said anything at all.

 

Lance took the initiative and went first. He fitted Shiro out in traditional Western formal wear, the best he could find, and when he was done stepped back to take a look.

It was definitely a tux, but unfortunately, formal clothes hadn’t been a priority for some time on Earth. As such, availability had plummeted, and they had trouble finding the right sizes for Shiro. He shifted carefully, feeling the jacket pull taut across his back and shoulders and the overlarge shirt bunch at his waist, and wished he hadn’t agreed to this...but he was desperate, and out of ideas. Desperation did things to a man.

“It’s not...the best,” Lance said after a long silence. Shiro gave him an absolutely deadpan look.

“You think?” he asked, dry as a bone, and Lance winced.

“Ok, yeah, really not the best at all. But look, this isn’t the fall fashion week in New York, ok? It’s the gesture we’re going for here. He might even appreciate it more, since it looks so uncomfortable, and you did it anyway to try and approach him correctly!”

“I still don’t think--” Shiro began, but was startled into silence by Lance’s finger on his lips.

“Shh,” Lance whispered, “don’t think about it. Just do it. Just go.” Shiro’s eyebrows climbed slowly, settling somewhere between “alarmed” and “mildly disturbed” before he sighed and nodded. Lance’s answering grin was slightly manic in the way that only he could manage.

“Go get ‘em, tiger!” he crowed, and just to add insult to injury, he smacked Shiro’s ass as Shiro left. 

Shiro jumped, stopped short, turned, and glared daggers at him. 

“Sorry, my bad, took it too far, I’ll just--,” Lance whispered, cringing back, past him, and out the door, and then sprinted away down the hall.

This does not bode well, Shiro thought, and went to find Keith.

 

“You look ridiculous,” Keith said first thing. Jaw tight, Shiro smiled and opened the door for him. Keith stood where he was and didn’t go through it.

“Seriously, Shiro. I told you my dad is just...he’s got a lot of time to make up for, since Allura brought him back. He’s adjusting,” Keith said. “He didn’t even know I was an omega when he died, now I’m an adult, about to be mated to some guy I’ve been chasing for years, who was my mentor in school. He doesn’t understand the history between yet.”

“I'm just trying to show him I’m serious about you,” Shiro said, and gestured Keith through the door again, impatiently this time. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”

“He’s going to laugh,” Keith said. Shiro snorted, a little bitter.

“That’d be an improvement.” 

Keith rolled his eyes, finally leaving his room, and they went to the parking lot. 

 

Keith’s dad hadn’t laughed. He’d snorted, once, under his breath, and said, “Nice monkey suit, kid.” Then he’d ignored Shiro the rest of the evening. 

“He’s just awkward,” Keith tried to reassure Shiro as he drove back to base. Shiro was laid back, seat reclined all the way, his too-small suit jacket over his head to conceal his shame from the world (aka Keith). “I think he felt bad about saying that about your suit and didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Monkey suit,” came Shiro’s muffled groan from under the jacket. Keith sighed and went back to looking at the road.

 

“Ha! My turn to try,” Matt said the next day, reveling in his chance to prove someone wrong. Lance pouted but honestly didn’t look too upset.

“Why aren’t you sad now,” Keith asked, poking Lance’s shoulder carefully. He was always careful when initiating physical contact with Lance; if he used too much force Lance would assume he either wanted to wrestle or wanted to go for real and Keith was trying not to do either of them as often. “Fifty GAC, dude.”

“Yeah, but maybe Matt can actually help,” Lance said with a shrug. “Besides, I got to see Shiro shirtless and smack his butt, and lived to tell about it.”

Maybe not for long, Keith thought, and narrowed his eyes at Lance. Lance shrugged and grinned, unrepentant. 

“It’s a nice butt,” he said, and Keith had to give him that.

“Hands off my boyfriend,” he grumbled.

 

“OK, so, here’s the plan,” Matt began later that evening, after he’d had time to gather “supplies.” “You’re going to pretend like you already mated Keith.”

“I’m what,” Shiro gaped. Keith looked just as shocked, eyes wide and mouth open.

“Pretend you’ve already mated Keith,” Matt repeated. “You’ll wear this,” he said, brandishing a light brown makeup pencil, “and it’ll look like a mating bite, and you’ve got to wear a shirt that just shows it. Just a bit. Not too much or he’ll think you’re rubbing it in his face, but you’re going for casual-aloof.”

“I don’t know that I like this,” Keith said. Shiro nodded slowly.

“It’s not--you’re not really going to do it,” Matt tried to explain. “And under where it shows we’ll alter the shape so it doesn’t look like a mating bite when you show the whole thing! But it might earn you cool points and make him acknowledge you.”

Shiro and Keith looked at each other, uneasy, asking if this was OK. Keith looked like he would take Shiro’s lead on it, and Shiro looked like he needed permission, and Matt decided he was over nonverbal communication.

“Just try it,” he stressed. “What do you have to lose?”

Shiro glanced over at Keith one more time, who was gazing up at him with trust in his eyes, and made his decision.

“We’ll try it once. But if he doesn’t notice I’m not doing it again,” Shiro warned, and Matt whooped before pulling up references of mating bites on his datapad. 

 

Shiro  
Spoiler alert: he ignored me

Matt  
Again?? Did you look away so he could see it like I told you

Shiro  
yes. a lot.

Matt  
[shrug emoji]

 

Two weeks and two Sunday dinners after Lance and Matt made their bet, Shiro was defeated. He slipped outside to sit on the porch after they ate, watching the sunset, and sighed, rubbing at the fake mark with a damp paper towel he snuck from the kitchen. The door creaked open and closed quietly as Shiro wrung out the excess water onto the dirt.

“He still doesn’t like me,” he said, and the footsteps stopped. Shiro imagined Keith was probably staring at him, looking at the slope of his shoulders and back, the way his head hung low and his arms rested on his knees. Shiro sighed. “I really wanted him to like me, babe. I know how important he is to you.” He leaned back, then laid back against the steps with a sigh, and looked straight up at Keith’s dad.

The older man stared down at Shiro, who stared back up at him. There was silence, broken only by the faint sound of dishes clinking together inside and the water of Keith washing them.

“Uh,” Shiro tried to start, but he stalled out--what was he supposed to say?

“What do you mean, I don’t like you?” Keith's dad asked. His brow creased further, angry, and he frowned, stern features on a stern man. Sharp. Upset.

Upset?

“You don’t...you don’t talk to me. And if you do it’s really, ah, short,” Shiro said, but he’d finally picked up on the missing clue to the puzzle, and it was this: Keith was his father’s son, and Keith had always had an epic resting bitch face. As a young teen it wasn’t hard to see through, but on an older man, who Shiro was desperately seeking approval from…

“I like you just fine,” Keith’s dad said, and yeah, Shiro could see it now. Confusion, covered with the sharpness of his jaw and the set of his brow. “You’ve helped Keith out more than I ever did, when I wasn’t there to do it. You’re important to him. You have literally saved his life before.” Keith’s dad seemed distressed now, shifting his weight to his other foot and his thumb rubbing against his fist in a familiar tic. Shiro rolled to his feet, dusted himself off, and stepped back up to meet him face-to-face, and tried one more time.

“I love your son,” he said. “I’d like to bond with him some day if he’d like. Are we ok?”

“I kind of assumed all of that. And yes,” Keith’s dad replied, and then, miracle of miracles, a small smile appeared on his face. Shiro beamed back, and Papa Kogane’s smile grew too, until it was warm and broad across his weathered face and he clapped a hand to Shiro’s shoulder.

“Sorry. I’ve never been good with people,” he said, and Shiro laughed.

“That’s all right,” Shiro said, “we have something in common. That’ll help.” Keith swung his head out the door just then, mouth open to say something, but he stopped when he saw them touching and then he too was smiling, a dazzling thing that made Shiro giddy.

“Just like your mom when you smile like that,” his dad said, gruff, and Shiro realized it was probably fondness that roughened his voice now. Keith’s smile tamped down to something more earthly and then turned sly. 

“She’ll be here in two weeks,” he said, and his dad’s entire body went rigid. 

“Does she know I’m back?” he demanded. Keith’s sly grin gained teeth.

“Yep.” 

“Oh Jesus,” the old man muttered. “I gotta clean. And shave.” He pushed past Keith to go in, and Keith laughed.

“Told you he liked you,” he told Shiro, and Shiro snorted.

“You did,” he admitted.

“Let’s go home,” Keith said, and then sidled up to Shiro to purr into his ear, “we can finally finish business between us. Matt gave us marked targets.”

 

The next time Shiro saw Matt and Lance, he told them they both owed him fifty GAC. Neither of them paid up, and in fact demanded compensation for their hard work, and Shiro tried to assign them kitchen detail.

(Matt hacked it and changed the roster, like Shiro figured he would. He hadn’t counted on Matt putting his name on the roster, though, and by the time he figured it out, there was no time to find a replacement. Shiro took his six hour shift peeling potatoes and doing dishes with dignity. It was worth it.)


End file.
